You are invited to be a part of a great story (Acts 16:6-15)

 

You are invited to be a part of a great story (Acts 16:6-15)

‘You can do anything you want, so long as you set your heart on it.’

‘You can achieve anything you put your mind to.’

As a famous poem declares, ‘I am the master of my fate, I am the captain of my soul.’

Has anyone ever said such things to you?  If they have you need to realize that they are utter rubbish.  They’re a big fat lie!  There are tons of things you can’t do no matter how hard you try.  In fact, we have far more limitations than abilities.

Think about it:

‘You can do anything you want to do, so long as you set your heart on it’.  Try running faster than the speed of light.

            ‘You can achieve anything you put your mind to.’  Try turning yourself invisible.

But just because we have loads of limitations doesn’t mean that we are destined to live small, meaningless lives.  In fact, God invites us into a bigger story than simply living for hook-ups and hangovers.  It’s a better than any lived on or through a screen.  This morning you are being invited into this God’s story.

1.      We make our plans, but God directs our actions (6-10)

There is a great guy called James Healy-Hutchinson, who teaches the Bible in a college in France.  On one occasion he was giving an update of his work to a church in Dublin, and explained, in his lovely polite accent, that ‘it may please the Lord to frustrate my plans.’  The book of Proverbs tells us that while we make our plans, it is God who directs our actions (Proverbs 16:9).  You are not the master of your fate and you are not the captain of your soul.

At the beginning of our passage God chooses to frustrate the plans of the apostle Paul and his companions.  The Holy Spirit kept them from peaching in the Roman province of Asia and would not allow them go to Bithynia.  In terms of gospel ministry, it was an issue of not yet rather than never for we know that the gospel was later preached in these places (1 Peter 1:1).

How did the Holy Spirit frustrate their plans?  We are not told.  Maybe they were given a word of prophecy; they might have received a strong sense of prompting in their hearts; or, it could be that circumstances didn’t allow it—that doors closed.  God changed their plans and God did this because He knows what is best.

My wife, Caroline, studied Russian in college.  She had planned to study German, but she didn’t get the points.  ‘It pleased God to frustrate her plans.’  When I first met her, I thought ‘why would someone study Russian?’  Little did I know!  Russian has changed Caroline’s life.  It enabled her to her to serve for three years in Belarus setting up Christian student societies.  It has connected her with all sorts of people.  It still helps her, even now, as she gets alongside Ukrainian refugees.

God will bless you as much with the doors He closes as with those He opens.  You might have your heart set on a certain friendship or relationship, that simply doesn’t work out.  But God still knows what is best!  Things might not work out in your family the way you wish.  But God never forsakes His children.  I think that He has shaped me more through the things that He has allowed me fail in than in those areas where He has allowed me succeed.

Next something unusual happens in our passage.  During the might Paul had a vision in which a man was begging him, ‘Come over to Macedonia and help us.’  What help was this man looking for?  They wanted to hear about Jesus.  There is nothing that people need more than Him!

This vision reminds me of what happened with our national saint, Patrick.  He had been captured from his homeland in Britain and taken as a slave to Ireland.  That was certainly not Patrick’s plan, but it was here that he remembered his parents’ faith and came into relationship with Christ.  God later enabled him to get home.  But when Patrick was at home he had a vision in which he heard the words, ‘O holy boy, we beg you to come again and walk among us.’  Patrick returned to the land of his slavery to speak about the one who rescued him from his slavery to guilt and the fear of death.

Just a small observation before we move on to our next point.  In verse ten we read that ‘we got ready at once to leave for Macedonia.’  The ‘we’ here implies that the writer of the book of Acts is now with them.  Doctor Luke, who wrote one of the four gospels and this follow up book of Acts joined the team in Troas.  If God had allowed Paul and his companions to take their planned route would Luke have ever joined them, and would we have the book of Acts?  God knows what He is at when he frustrates our plans!

2.      God’s plans involve precious people (11-17)

There is another thing you can’t do: you can’t open your own or other people’s hearts to the good news about Jesus.  No matter how clever you are, you cannot persuade people to give their life to Christ.  It is Jesus who opens people’s hearts to accept His good news.   

A Jewish meeting place—a synagogue—needed ten Jewish men in order to be formed.  It seems that in the city of Philippi there were not ten such men to do this.  But there were a group of women who went down to the river to pray.  One of those was a business woman called Lydia.  She was from the city of Thyatira, which was famous for luxury purple goods, and she was a dealer in purple cloth.  ‘The Lord opened her heart to respond to Paul’s message.’

She had been a worshipper of God, but had not yet become a Christian.  You see, becoming a Christian is more than being religious.  Maybe you love coming to events like this.  You love singing the songs.  You love the atmosphere.  You love the people.  But have you thought deeply about the life, death and resurrection of Jesus?  Jesus lived the perfect, God-pleasing life that we cannot live and died the death our guilt deserves so that we could enjoy God now and forever.  If that is not yet a reality for you, ask the Lord to open your heart.

Note that it is Jesus who opened Lydia’s heart to accept the good news.  No one comes into a living relationship with Jesus without the work of the Holy Spirit.  It is not that Jesus wouldn’t accept people if they came to Him on their own steam, it is just that left to ourselves no one would ever choose Him.  It is in our nature to resist the message of the cross.

We see this in John’s gospel, where we read ‘This is the verdict: Light has come into the world, but people loved darkness instead of the light because their deeds were evil.  Everyone who does evil hates the light, and will not come into the light for fear that their deeds will be exposed.  But whoever does what is true comes into the light, so that it may be clearly seen that his works have been carried out in God’ (John 3:19-21).  Everyone runs from the light.  But God can change us so that we gladly embrace His truth. 

Knowing that people will only accept Jesus if the Holy Sprit softens their hearts should cause of to be praying for people.  For God responds to His people’s prayers.  Knowing the true faith comes from God will mean that we want to speak about Jesus because the message of the cross and resurrection brings God’s life-transforming power.  We can gather a crowd by creating a cool community, we can score points with clever arguments, but it is only the good news of Jesus that opens hearts.  We should also pray confidently knowing that God is not reluctant to rescue people, but delights to show mercy (Micah 7:18).

3.      God opened ours heart, and we open our lives (18)

After Lydia and the members of her household—which would have included servants—were baptized, she invited Paul and his companions to stay at her home.  ‘If you consider me a believer in the Lord, come and stay at my house’ (18).  What we see here is evidence that God really has opened her heart to Jesus.

She goes public with her faith in her baptism.  If you want to know that Jesus really has changed you, start being open with people about your love for Him.  When I was your age I would come to events like this and travel along in a Christian bubble, and then go back to school and keep my head down as a Christian.  You don’t see much life like that.  You see life when you stand for Jesus and realize that He is standing with you.

She invited other Christians into her home.  In that culture having a meal with someone was a sign of accepting them—which is why Jesus endured so much criticism for eating with people that everyone looked down on.  Lydia is accepting her new family in Christ.  I remember one of the first times I prayed with another Christian my age.  It felt so intimate.  We experience more of the Holy Spirit as we develop deep relationships with other Christians.

I also think that she invited Paul and his companions to stay with her because she wanted to learn more about this Jesus who was transforming her life.  One of the evidences that we love Jesus is that we want to know more about Him.  Make it your goal to have a life-long growing encounter with the Spirit of truth.

Conclusion

You can’t do whatever you set you mind on.  You have loads of limits.  But that does not mean that you are limited to living in a small story.  God wants to save us from a life confined to screens, hangovers and hook-ups.  I invite you to be a part of God’s big story.

In this story God will frustrate many of your plans.  Sometimes He will bring you through dark valleys.  You might wish that you had the gifts and roles given to others in His family.  But this plan is personal.  There is a God who wants you to experience His life-transforming power, who has given us an infinitely better story to share, and who will direct us into His plans for us.

Let me finish with a favorite verse of mine:

‘For we are God’s masterpiece, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God has prepared in advance for us to do’ (Ephesians 2:10).

I invite to be a part of this great story!